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Think very hard about giving your baby an Irish name unless you live in Ireland!

213 replies

sunnydelight · 25/03/2008 04:10

DD is called Aoife. I am Irish and my mum died when I was pregnant so giving her an Irish name seemed very important to me even though I was living in the UK (as well as giving her her grandmother's name as a middle name). Five years later I want to scream. No, she is not called EeTHa, or A-o-fie. I have a smile permanently pasted to my face explaining that of course I wouldn't expect anyone to know how to spell or pronounce such a strange name, but it is pronounced Ee-fa. I even write it phonetically in brackets when I fill in forms now. I remind her swimming teacher (with a smile on my face) every week, ditto the guy who runs the gym club. I am glad that I am not allowed to watch her ballet class so I don't have to listen to what they call her. We have just had a friend around (first Aussie playdate so every excited) and her friend's mum called her EeTHa throughout. I have already explained how to pronounce it so resorted to the usual "mirror it back the correct way" every time. No deal. Don't do it to your babies, please don't do it

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chipmonkey · 30/03/2008 22:21

Have to say, Torin is a new one on me, time4tea but it is a lovely name!

MadameCh0let · 31/03/2008 10:14

Colleen is very unusual in Ireland isn't it? I don't know a single one. Perhaps it's because it means girl. So it seems a bit too generic for us. Like the Spanish would probably not use Nina as a given name for the same reason.

MadameCh0let · 31/03/2008 10:17

Timefortea, Anne Enright's children are Lorcan and Rachel. I really love the name Lorcan. But on the US boards I was told it was too like Vulcan. (That well known name, Vulcan! ??)

Funny about the London-Irish names! As I have a London-Irish friend who came up with Senan and told us all back home that it was Irish! (We wouldn't have known, in our ignorance).

chipmonkey · 31/03/2008 10:28

I have known 2 Colleens in my entire life.

CitroenDrivingFootballMum · 31/03/2008 10:40

so how would you pronounce siobhan and sinead then? i really like those names and thought the english "typical" proununciation was correct?

Buda · 31/03/2008 10:45

Citroen - siobhan is pronounced 'shuvaun' and Sinead is pronounced 'shinaid'.

chipmonkey · 31/03/2008 10:45

siobhan = shivawn
sinead = Shin-aide

CitroenDrivingFootballMum · 31/03/2008 10:48

ah - read post further down wrong - poster was criticising the re-spelling, not the pronunciation

thanks for that though

time4tea · 31/03/2008 18:49

Madame Cholet, I would go for Lorcan, Vulcan or not (? what) everyone who hears it loves it. there's another Lorcan living nearby (his mum heard my Lorcan being called at baby-clinic and we met up that way) among what seems like tons of Finns, Caitlins etc. although another London-Irish friend said he couldn't understand people in London calling their sons Finn, given the way it sounds like "thin" in a London accent - just inviting a boy called Finn to be fat and have the mickey taken out of him...

MadameCh0let · 01/04/2008 12:43

I had never thought of that. Finn/Thin....

I actually considered Thea for my daughter. She had a great aunt Thea. I'm so glad I didn't now! Can you imagine? About 35% of Irish people can't say their Tee Aiches!

cyteen · 01/04/2008 15:00

I used to work for a well-known examining board, and the guy who ran the Northern Ireland regional exams sensibly had a chart tacked up on the wall of Irish names alongside their correct pronounciation

It's understandable to get a name wrong when you're unfamiliar with it, but I do find it very rude when people who've been told over and over what the correct sound is still insist on getting it wrong. Then again I am notably intolerant and unreasonable when it comes to people getting names wrong. I am a Suzanna, called Suzi for short. These are not uncommon names or spellings, yet all the time I get Sue, Susan, Suzanne , or Suzy/Suzie/Suzey, or Susannah. The time it bugs me out the most is when people reply to emails - my email address clearly states the right spelling, I will have signed off with the right spelling, and there will be an automatic signature with the right spelling, and still people will reply with something wrong. That's just lazy.

So there you go - even the most 'normally' named face the pronounciation/spelling blocks. There's a great group on Facebook actually, called "People who always have to spell their name for other people". As well as being a great source for baby names, it's quite amazing how many Jane Smiths and Tom Browns seem to be met with misspellings and wrongness!

chipmonkey · 02/04/2008 00:42

It reminds me of that Celebrity Big Brother when Jade's Mum didn't even seem to be trying to pronounce Shilpa's name! Just rude!

amytheearwaxbanisher · 02/04/2008 00:48

my ds has an irish name but we live in ireland so its grand

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